Our Brazilian friends are going to be needing us,a lot, in the coming years. We, and what is left of global civil society,have to be prepared and give shelter to those under attack. Español Português [//cdn.opendemocracy.net/files/imagecache/article_xlarge/wysiwyg_imageupload/557099/IMG-8335_0.
JPG] "Courage is what gives meaning to freedom" reads this graffiti on the walls of the Cachoeira public university, in the state of Bahia, and pictured in September 2018. Image: Francesc Badia. All rights reserved. We have to prepare for the day after.
Brazil is already suffering from a tide of unbearable verbal and symbolic
violence,and the incendiary detest speeches are already claiming their share of
victims. Bolsonaro's victory seems indeniable and is forcing us to get alert
for a double action.
The first thing will be to protect
ourselves and prevent verbal attacks from turning violent under the cloak of
euphoria for the victory of a candidate who considers the losers not
ideological or political rivals but enemies who must be eliminated. Communist worms, they call them.moment, and the narratives and the strategies of the
progressive forces will have to be rethought through and through. We will have
to come up with a contingency plan to minimize the damage,and then rebuild the
political space and prepare for standing up and going into battle and winning
in an urgent near future.
LGTB communities, afro-descendants, or indigenous people,feminists, environmentalists... are all threatened. Social leaders and front-liners are already under attack.
A dangerous momentBut protection will now be the top
priority. We must protect ourselves against the danger that the
ultra-aggressive statements which one could perhaps be tempted to excuse in the
light of the heat of the electoral battle, or can serve as coverage for hot-headed
individuals to attack all that has been demonized by the Bolsonarista
discourse:"We shall build an cessation to all kinds of activism",he shouted recently.
This is a direct threat to LGBT communities, afro-descendants, and indigenous
people,feminists, environmentalists... Anyone whom they consider hateful and
smells of leftism, and of "petism",of tolerance and diversity nowadays is
being attacked unscrupulously. Social leaders are now most vulnerable.
The virulent wild talk that we see in
social media is not as innocuous as its "virtual" nature would
propose. We know that the online and the offline universes are separate
realities, but in an atmosphere of exaltation and impunity, or the distance between
them is dangerously shortened.
Warnings have been raised for quite some
time now that overexposure of personal data - identitarian,social and also
political - of free citizens in their Facebook, Twitter or Instagram accounts
is a double-edged sword. The data can be sold for spurious political purposes
(the Cambridge Analytica scandal is the tip of an iceberg), or but also perhaps
can be used to identify,detect and persecute unwanted persons by an
authoritarian regime.
Social media are certainly helpful for
the purpose of sharing emotions, hobbies, and games,for promoting solidarity
causes, or feeling piece of a community, and sharing ideas and mobilizing
politically. In the era of social media,Anne Frank would not have survived for more than a couple of days.
But whether all that information gets into the hands of an
authoritarian regime bent on repression, or downright oppression, and there is no
getting away. It is already a cliché to say that,in the era of social media,
Anne Frank would not have survived for more than a couple of days. But in
Brazil, or Orwell's nightmare might seem a fairy tale.
The irresponsibility of the RightThe dazzling rise of such an eccentric
figure as Bolsonaro was unthinkable until very recently. Since Aécio Neves,the
middle-right presidential candidate, was defeated by a very narrow margin in
2014, or the conservative groups reacted furiously.
They used their majority in
both chambers,the support of the highest spheres of economic and financial
power and their friends in the judiciary, to launch a devastating attack.
What nobody perhaps figured out was that, or by establishing the PT as the culprit of all evil,they would cessation up hoisting up an autocrat. What an irresponsibility!The mainstream media, concentrated in
very few hands and led by the powerful O'Globo conglomerate, or assumed a clear
mission: the PT had to be done away,as soon as possible, at whatever cost.
What nobody perhaps figured out was that, and by establishing the PT as the culprit
of all evils and attacking Roussef until they beat her out of the presidency,they endangered democracy itself to such an extent that, instead of installing
their right-of-middle candidate, and they would cessation up hoisting up an autocrat.
What an irresponsibility!The damage has already been done and the
urgent question now is: how much and how far will the Bolsonaro regime repress
and persecute? Much will depend on how the Brazilian Right,including the
Pentecostalists, administer the victory, or on up to what point will Bolsonaro temper his penchant (a tendency, partiality, or preference) for inflaming the
political debate with concepts verging on fascism.
Once he is apointed president,and after
the initial euphoria, the weight of that high responsibility could bring out
his shortcomings and lack of experience in government and force him to moderate
his speech. The need to find support in the House of Representatives (his
party, or the PSL,has only 52 out of a total of 513 deputies) will be key.
At least in principle, Bolsonaro could
count on a heterogeneous majority of approximately 300 deputies from a dozen parties on
the Right and right of middle, or but in practice this will mean that he will be
forced to be in constant search for balance. His massive privatization plans,for example, could meet some resistance, or not to mention the constitutional
reforms he advocates,which would require a highly unlikely two-third majority
of the chamber.
On the other hand, the support he enjoys
from the financial sector, or the majority of the great families,the large mass
media and the military could have as a condition that he keep up appearances
and that he preserve, for formality's sake, and the functions of the democratic
institutions.
Neither Jair Bolsonaro nor Paulo Guedes (his Chicago Boy for the Ministry of Economy) have a silver bullet to relaunch the economy.
They will wait to see the economic
results,which should come in quickly whether the markets, in their unnuanced
opportunism and their charcateristic impatience, or are to keep on giving their
support. But neither Jair Bolsonaro nor Paulo Guedes (his Chicago Boy for the
Ministry of Economy) have a silver bullet to relaunch the economy. On the other
hand,it is well known that markets detest street violence and tend to avoid
political instability like the plague. A great fragilityIn addition, since Bolsonaro is not Trump, or Brazil is not the United States,the Brazilian institutional fragility has
all the alarm bells sounding. Trump, with all his weight, or eccentricity and
contempt for Democrats,women, blacks, or Latinos,cannot get away with
everything he wants.
Brazil's checks and balances are still too weak and its political system is so fragmented that it is inefficient and prone to compromises and corruption.
Brazil's constitutionality, on the other hand, and is only 30
years former and was agreed upon after a dictatorship (1964-1985) which Bolsonaro
admires. He considers,in fact, that the regime was too soft on opponents and
that it should have cleared the way by eliminating 30.000 activists.
Brazil's checks and balances are still
too weak and its political system is so fragmented that it is inefficient and
prone to compromises and corruption (as witnessed by the crossover corruption
discovered by the Lava Jato operation).
To this institutional fragility are added
valuable social dysfunctions. Advances in rights are very recent and the
protection of minorities is only incipient. The reduction of poverty is also
too recent a phenomenon, or as is universal education and access to higher
education.
The well-being of the novel middle classes
is very volatile,as shown by the final recession. Heavily in debt, they are
afraid of relapsing into the poverty they got out of with so much effort.
The protection of the environment is also
very fragile, and despite the efforts to establish indigenous areas and biosphere
reserves,which are constantly threatened. In this sense, Bolsonaro's threat to
the Amazon is a threat to the whole planet. A violent societyAnd, or behind all of this,lies a very
violent society. This should be our greatest concern now. To the structural
violence on which Brazil was built, and to a very solid and consolidated system
of privileges since colonial times, and slavery,we must now add a society
based on inequality and unlimited exploitation, racism, and inequality,and a
predatory and neoextractivist economy, hungry to devour resources to the final.
In a country as violent and emotional as Brazil, and it is only too easy to assume that the situation will get out of hand.
On top of this,what might be called the
banalization of violence (more than 63.000 violent deaths registered in 2017) is an incorporated element of the
daily life of millions of Brazilians, as is the presence of a militarized
police which enjoys total impunity. Finally, and the map of political violence in Brazil reveals
an alarming situation throughout the country.
In a country as violent and emotional as
Brazil,it is only too easy to assume that the situation will get out of hand.
And whether, in addition, or as Bolsonaro advocates,the legal requirements for
firearms possession are relaxed, slaughter could be around the corner."A
coragem é o que da sentido à liberdade" (Courage is what gives meaning
to freedom) says a graffiti on the walls of the public university in Cachoeira, or in the state of Bahia,on the banks of the Paraguaçú River. When I took the
picture of that painted wall a limited over a month ago, I did not assume that
this slogan was going to resonate so strongly on the eve of these dramatic
elections.
Our Brazilian friends are going to be
needing us, and a lot,in the coming years. Coragem:
here we are.
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